Bryant spoke to news reporters at the morning shootaround at the team's facility. Here's a quick transcript of what he said:

On whether he was surprised by the hire...

"Um, a little bit. I mean I really didn't know what to expect, to be honest. I think we all were kind of thinking it was going to be Phil. It probably caught Mike (D'Antoni) off-guard a little bit too, but I'm excited."

On whether he has talked to D'Antoni or Phil...

"I spoke to Mike this morning. It was great. Not much (was talked about). It was really short, just kind of a hello type of thing."

On his relationship with D'Antoni from playing against him and on Team USA...

"I mean, we have a great relationship. The offense that he installed for our USA Team is the offense that we run to the tune of two gold medals. We all know the type of talent that we had on that team, so it was important for us to have an offense that was flexible, that was open, that kept everybody involved. It worked pretty well for us."

On how D'Antoni's system will work with this roster...

"It's going to be fine. It's not like he takes the same thing that he did in Phoenix and incorporates it here. He has different personnel. He can use Steve to his greatest advantages, and me to mine and Dwight to his, and Pau to his and so forth and so on."

On the perception that D'Antoni's team don't defend...

"That's just because he hasn't won any championships. I mean Phil's been here, and -- to be honest with you -- we might have, in all the years I've been with Phil, (had) maybe three defensive drills the entire time. And I'm not understating it at all. But his philosophy was always -- you guys need to figure it out on your own. And that's what made him a phenomenal coach, was that he was able to sit back and trust the process and trust players to communicate with each other. That's when a team is at its best. As a result, we've had some great defensive teams. But we have to hold each other accountable though."

On whether he was disappointed it wasn't Jackson...

"Obviously there's always going to be a little bit, because Phil and I have gone back since I was 20 years old and everything that he's taught me and so forth. There's a little bit of (disappointment). But at the same time, I'm very excited for Coach D. I know Phil will be enjoying his retirement and looking to get back in the game -- although probably not (from) a coaching standpoint, but a managerial role or something like that."

On whether he attempted to find out why Jackson wasn't hired and how it went down...

"Nah, nah, it's kind of a waste of time for me at this point. I mean, what good is that going to do for me? It does nothing for me. But I spoke with Mitch, I spoke with Jimmy (Buss) before everything went down, and we talked about some of the coaching candidates and stuff and -- to be honest -- I said D'Antoni was my first choice because I didn't even know Phil was going to be an option. And then Jimmy was the one who brought up Phil's name, and I said, 'Well, shoot, I didn't know that was a consideration.' And they said, 'Well it is, and I want to know how you feel about it.' And I said, 'I love it,' and that was it. So they knew my two guys that I liked. And if one didn't work out obviously with Phil, they knew that they had my approval to pull the trigger on the other one. "

On whether he appreciated being consulted, as opposed to the Brown hiring when he wasn't...

"Very much so. Yeah, very much so. Very much so. I mean our relationship has been much more open and much more fluid since (last time, when Bryant wasn't consulted in the hiring of Mike Brown)."

On why D'Antoni the first coach you recommended...

"Well, I mean I've been around him quite a bit. I've always played his teams for a number of years. I know his philosophies, I know what he stands for, and I know how competitive he is. I mean he is a feisty, feisty, dude man - temperamental even. And I like that."

On when he will be with the team...

"Oh, I don't know. That's more a question for Mitch and those guys. I don't know."

On how much he followed D'Antoni's playing career in Italy...

"Well, I followed it quite a bit. I mean I was right there when I was growing up, during that entire era when he was playing in Milan, so quite a bit. He was just feisty, just feisty. He was tough. He was a tenacious guard, man. He made great plays. He was probably the greatest guard to ever play over there."

On whether he idolized him growing up...

"I mean you could say that to a certain extent. I mean growing up, I tried to watch and learn from so many basketball players, all the top ones - and he certainly was a top one. He was a player that I admired growing up."

On how long it will take to learn his offense...

"Nah, it's pretty quick. It's not something where you have to remember a sequence of options or something like that, it's really about spacing and reading. It shouldn't be too hard."

On how he'll fit into D'Antoni's system...

"Well, but he's an offensive genius. If you talk to anybody that played with him on that Olympic team, that response would be unanimous. He's an offensive genius. So does that mean that he's going to take the one system that he had in Phoenix and implement that (with his new roster)? No, that means you give an offensive genius so many more options to play with. So now he has a great two-guard, he has a great point guard, he has a great power forward, he has a great center, he has an incredible small forward. I mean he has a lot to play with. He said (when they spoke) that he's excited to be here and looking forward to getting started."

On whether D'Antoni's offense is better for Bryant than the Princeton offense that former coach Mike Brown was installing...

"You know, you can drop me anywhere and I'm going to get you 25, 30 points, you know what I'm saying? So what offenses do, really, is that it has to be something that helps out the role players more than anything. Because when you look at the star players, the numbers are going to be the same - across the board. It doesn't matter what offense you put in, what defense you put in, my numbers - at the end of the day - are going to look the same, Dwight is going to look the same, Pau is going to look the same. So it's about, really, how do you get the most out of your role players."

On D'Antoni's legacy and the hit it took in New York, where he wasn't being called a "genius" by many...

"You know what, if you talk to (Knicks forward) Carmelo (Anthony), and you ask him about Mike D'Antoni's offense, he'll tell you he's an offensive genius. For sure. Whether it didn't work down there because of the personnel that they had or whatever happened, I don't really know. I don't even get into that. But I know firsthand that he feels that way about him."

On his conversations with Nash about what he should expect from D'Antoni...

"Nah, I don't know if (D'Antoni) could really surprise me with too much. I mean we've seen him in like four playoff series, it's like, pretty familiar with it. I

On how D'Antoni challenges him as a player...

"Well, I mean he's competitive. He's extremely competitive. And I think in this situation, with all the chatter that's going on, particularly about how he's not a good defensive coach, I think we'll rally around that and come out with a point to prove. The last two games, we honestly have had no defensive system whatsoever. We've been reading and reacting to each other, studying personnel, and we did pretty good. Now tonight (against the Spurs) is going to be a different animal, but we're looking forward to it."

On how you maximize this team defensively...

"Communication. Communication. I mean that's really all it is. It's constantly communicating with each other on the floor, understanding personnel - who likes to do what, who likes to go where, and reacting to it."